


Stay the Course

by stephanericher



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 10:38:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8098954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: They should be talking; they shouldn’t be standing at the window watching the sky, and yet Coran’s words keep dying in his throat, sublimating out of their solid forms into the air before they get a chance to make a sound.





	

Their conversation falls into a lull, a stillness like late hazy summers when they were children and Alfor would claim he saw the sun just a little bit larger in the sky (even though that’s not how it works, and Coran had known it well back then but the way Alfor had said it had made him believe, just for a second, that regardless of Altea’s near-circular orbit that maybe it was perceptibly bigger).

“Coran,” says Alfor, not quite abruptly.

“Yes?”

“Come over.”

He’s standing by the window, patterns flickering over the sill, and it’s then Coran begins to hear the pepper of something firing on the castle shields, and for a second he tenses and moves to go, to ready the castle, but then as he moves closer he sees. It’s not enemy forces; it’s not the Galra or some unknown foe or anything malicious, just the weather.

It’s so difficult not to shudder, to unfurl his entire body right now, but years of practice at being the perfect official let him keep his body straight, shoulders back as he stares out the window. The rocks flame brighter as they pick up speed, particles sublimating and turning to fire and smoke and steam in a brilliance of hues from their different elemental compositions and exact temperatures. A shower like this is rare; Coran’s only seen a handful in his lifetime and they were all out in the countryside. The sound of the rocks bouncing off the castle shields reverberates, a simple cacophony, so much like when he had been a child, stealing down the corridors with Alfor and hiding together in closets and cupboards to listen to the staff gossip (until once they had tumbled out in front of Coran’s mother and he’d gotten in so much trouble and they’d never done it again and Coran had made a show of admonishing Alfor for it because, after all, it had been his duty to ensure the prince followed proper procedure). Then, the falling rocks had seemed like a heavenly mystery, so much larder and louder and brighter than they’d seemed as he grew up, undistorted by his relative smallness and newness.

“Beautiful,” says Alfor.

Coran inclines his head, looking up through his eyelashes at his king, the way he stares out with that slight furrow of his brow he’d always thought had made him look wise (and he’d always been right).

Now is not the time for that; they should be talking about affairs of state; they should be talking about Allura and her potential courses of action. They should be talking; they shouldn’t be standing at the window watching the sky, and yet Coran’s words keep dying in his throat, sublimating out of their solid forms into the air before they get a chance to make a sound.

He’s looking at Alfor again; he’s not five hundred ticks into this talk and not only have they gone off course but he’s broken the promise he’s made each time he’d exited the AI. Don’t look; don’t crave. It had been bad enough when Alfor was real and living, but now he’s just a collection of memories and they’re standing in this not-quite-verisimilar rendition of Altea the way they’d remembered and Coran is staring at his face in the shadows, the strong line of his jaw and the small scar under his ear and they are close enough to touch, but there is nothing to touch.

The purpose of this AI was to preserve Alfor’s memories of strategy, of warfare, of fighting the Galra—and of being Allura’s father. But all the old AIs Coran had visited before had been dusty and incomplete, repetitive; even the most robust had had nothing like this, no scenes in this much detail, no accurate weather simulators. None of them had felt real.

Maybe that’s his part, his end of keeping up the charade. Maybe Coran’s memories fill in the blanks, all the seconds he’d spent memorizing and correcting Alfor’s posture (kings don’t slump) and the years he’d spent reminding Allura of the same exact things (princesses don’t either) and the way Alfor’s eyes had sparkled when Coran had told him. But that still doesn’t explain why Alfor had put so much of this in his memories, how this artificial not-quite-him goes off on exactly the same tangents he would have gone off on when they were back on Altea and discussing the budget.

Coran’s hands curl into fists.

“Sire. About Allura.”

“Yes?”

His mouth is quirked up in that beautiful, innately regal way that makes it even harder for Coran to not imagine kissing it (again, his traitorous mind whispers, it would be again), for the briefest of moments. And then Coran forces his mind through, the same way he always does, and begins to speak of when she leads the paladins, her style, the things Coran could possibly assist her with (and the things she has done, smart and quick-thinking and patient, and even though the AI won’t benefit the real Alfor would want to know) and the next time he turns back to the window the sky outside is clear.

“I’ve kept you too long,” Alfor says.

(He’d said that billions of times perhaps, the consideration always genuine even when Coran’s schedule had been relatively clear, even when they’d been speaking on matters of utmost importance, even before the last time.)

Coran bobs his head. “I’ll take my leave.”

It’s more deference than Alfor would usually let him show, but he puts it there anyway. The AI doesn’t hurt. There should be more distance between them; there should be more distance even than there should have been between Coran and the real Alfor. He shouldn’t let the conversation waver in the first place; he shouldn’t look forward to these moments of quiet, these facsimiles of shared memories.

He shouldn’t come back again. This AI was built for Allura; she is capable of leading Voltron. She knows best what matters on which to consult her father’s knowledge. Coran has years of his own advisory experience to draw from, and that well won’t dry up anytime soon. And perhaps if he repeats that loud enough to himself it will drown out the echoes of those words in his mind and let him pretend Alfor’s voice isn’t what he most wants to hear.

**Author's Note:**

> if he can do a meadow he can do a flaming-rock-rain thing in the simulation, right?


End file.
